Instruction in early comprehension and use of a symbol-referent relation

PERALTA, OLGA A.; SALSA, ANALÍA M.

Cognitive Development

Elsevier Inc.

Año: 2003 vol. 18 p. 269 - 284

0885-2014

Early symbolic understanding is influenced by multiple factors, like instruction, similarity and experience. The primary interest of this research was to study the impact of instruction on young children´s understanding of the symbolic function of a scale model. Three studies were conducted using an object retrieval task and two similar-scale spaces. The results, in combination with prior research, show that instruction acts in concert with size similarity and age: Three-year-olds do not need any instructional support in order to succeed. On the other hand, the omission of complete instructions, especially constant reminders of the parallel events that take place in both spaces, seriously disrupts 2.5-year-old children?s performance. Transfer effects of instruction are also clearly established, 2.5-year-olds are capable of realizing that a similar-scale model is related to the space it represents if the relation is fully explained and demonstrated and to transfer this awareness to a no instructions task in which they would otherwise fail.